And if you still want more, I’ll direct you to read “On the Crisis of Zionism” an article on the much discussed Peter Beinart book. You know when Rolling Stone magazine starts covering Palestine it’s getting to be a pretty mainstream issue in America.

In no way will any parts of this interview be aired in the U.S. or mainstream corporate media.

The crack-down on the internet is spurred from many quarters, one of them is to censor content such as this.

There’s no Arabic word for “Take-Away food” (I wonder if you spotted it?) otherwise the translation was very good.

I’ll let you make your own conclusions on the interview, from a man who is denied air time on the western media. We cry loudly about the great freedom of speech we have and at the same time block Al-Manar from broadcasting and even blocking their twitter account – thanks Israel.

I haven’t seen so many bad elements of journalism incorporated into one article since The News of The World went out of business.

Firstly there is an element of competition between two rival media outlets, and if one side gets a big scoop, the other has to respond by dismissing it. Sadly, it’s becoming an ugly side of journalism that is becoming much more common.

For those with a memory will remember that The Guardian did it with the Murdoch Phone-hacking Scandal, running it for weeks on end. Not that it shouldn’t have been reported but there was a clear “conflict of interest” underpinning Britain’s second-best selling Newspaper (The Guardian) attacking Britain’s best selling Newspaper (The News of the World) until it was shut down.

The second bad journalism element is the “personel vendetta” that I charge The Guardian with running.

Less then two years ago The Guardian was working with Julian Assange and calling him a hero.

The film “Rambo” is a classic tale of how a anti-war book written about the post Vietnam era in America is hijacked by Hollywood to glorify violence and war, the exact psyche of the American system, that the author David Morrell examined in his 1972 novel “First Blood”.

If, like me you were a child of the Eighties, then you grew up on a diet of “big gun americana” movies, I’m talking about Stallone & Schwarzenegger and everything that promoted the american way.

It didn’t matter how crap the quality of your pirated VHS version was, Rambo was on heavy rotation where ever I went.

Years later I found out it was based on a book, and decided to have a read of it.

What I found out as a child barely into my double digits was that the film was far removed from the book.

Rambo first learns about the death of one of his former soldier buddies, the film doesn’t mention what the book did, and that was he died from cancer – the after effects of the american army spraying millions of litres of Agent Orange into the jungles of Vietnam.

Why would the American army – do a such a thing?

Yeah the Vietnamese were the bad guys, but why would the americans also kill their own soldiers (thought a 8 year old Akh).

Another example was that if you’ve actually watched the film, ask yourself how many people actually die?

The answer is one

The sheriffs deputy that gets hit with a rock and falls out of the helicopter (that’s what happened, I’m not making it up)

The book was far more brutal, Rambo killed literally every single figure of authority, or that represented the police or the army that he came into contact with, even the dogs weren’t spared.

Eventually the Colonel that Rambo served under in Vietnam is called up to reach out to his creation and after that speech he persuades Rambo to give up and escorts him out…and that’s where the film ends.

True to form, reading the book I was absolutely shocked as to what the ending was….and I only found out this week that the ending was actually filmed, but it didn’t make the final cut as it didn’t go down well with the test audiences.

I was over the moon to see Rambo fighting alongside the Mujahideen and kicking some russian ass, after all, isn’t that exactly what the power of a lobby should be? to use the mass media to win hearts and minds?

There was no book for Rambo III, but I sat glued to the end credits, and found that the film wasn’t made on location in Afghanistan, but filmed in israel, and what was even worse, nearly all the Afghan Mujahideen were played by israeli’s too.

I found out at a very young age that you shouldn’t believe what you see in the media. Perhaps Rambo left an indelible mark on my psyche too…who really runs Hollywood?

Goes to show, this “house muslim” mentality that our people have been brainwashed with gets you nowhere.

You can make the devil all the money he needs, you can shuck and jive to his tune, try demanding the god given rights you should have, you’ll get a smack in the face and reminded of your place in the pecking order.

BBC’s Have I Got News For You is yet again at the centre of a potential Islamophobic row, when presenter Sharon Horgan made the jibe about “The Mecca of suicide bombers….is Mecca”.

Should Muslims turn the other cheek and accept it is a light hearted, off the cuff joke?

Or is it yet another example of a publicly funded body taking the blatant piss out of one of it’s most maligned and under pressure communities?

The Akh has actually been to a recording of the show, and all the presenter does is to READ off an autocue machine, so this “joke” was pre-written by the programme’s writers – all Horgan did was read it out.

Then again, the BBC loves a bit of moral midgetry, remember that old thing called free speech?

Frankie Boyle certainly does, cracking a joke comparing Palestine to a cake being “punched to pieces by a very angry Jew” will get you rebuked.

Have you always wanted to know who was the ultimate freedom fighter/terrorist group? This video breaks down exactly what would happen if the Taliban and the IRA were to go up against one another.

Despite what you think, the IRA have never really gone away, this weeks bomb threat proved that, and the whole world has been fighting the Taliban for more than ten years and they are still alive and kicking.

Al Qaeda related news has been the number one media scare story for more than a decade. In the face of much more tangible threats in the past – like the IRA, the Soviet Union and even Nazi Germany – British governments did not encourage the people to behave like hedgehogs.

So why roll up into a ball now in the face of what is a serious but in no way an overwhelming threat to our nation and our freedoms?

The Akh has been revisiting the brilliant documentary series by Adam Curtis, titled “The Power of Nightmares”, from which the most telling clip above is taken from. What that documentary stated was not that there was no threat, but rather the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organisation waiting to strike our societies is an illusion, in effect, a way of creating the terror threat.

The question the series tried to answer was why contemporary politicians and other elites, like the media, want you to feel frightened – to behave and feel like a hedgehog trapped on a motorway – when the reality and the scale of the threat is actually very different.

In December 2004, Lord Hoffman, standing in the House of Lords made the following speech:

“The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these”

Like Lord Hoffman I am optimistic, I’m sure we will survive not only “al Qaeda” but also the politics of fear.

Of course when the fear goes and people see just how much the threats have been exaggerated then there will be a further loss of trust in politicians and their authority.

Yet there are those who say the Al Qaeda group doesn’t exist at all, that they’re an invention of the Government designed to keep the population frightened, and to ensure that the pliant masses accept higher military spending.

Terror Expert Jason Burke, author of Al Qaeda, one of the most quoted books on the subject, is also in the video excerpt above (1.08 in) he states;

“The terrorist group al-Qaeda in fact does not exist. It was made up in January of 2001 in order to prosecute Osama bin Laden in his absence. In order to prosecute bin Laden there had to be an organization like the Mafia for which he was a part of. Under the law if such an organization exists then the head of the organization can be prosecuted under the law. So in order to bring the prosecution they made up the organization and called it al-Qaeda. But the organization is fiction. It doesn’t exist. It’s all a huge fraud.”

and then adds;

“The idea which is critical to the FBI¹s prosecution that bin Laden ran a coherent organisation with operatives and cells all around the world of which you could be a member is a myth. There is no Al Qaeda organisation. There is no international network with a leader, with cadres who will unquestioningly obey orders, with tentacles that stretch out to sleeper cells in America, in Africa, in Europe. That idea of a coherent, structured terrorist network with an organised capability simply does not exist.”

“…al Qaeda is far less a large organization than a facilitator, sometimes orchestrator, of Islamic militants around the globe. These militants are linked by ideas and goals, not by organizational structure. The intent is establishment of a state, or states ruled by Islamic law and free of western influence. Bin Laden’s contribution to the Islamic jihad is a creature of the modern world. He has spawned a global network of individuals with common, radical ideas, kept alive through modern communications and sustained through forged documents and money laundering activities on a global scale.”

“Al Qaeda is not an organization. Al Qaeda is a way of working … but this has the hallmark of that approach. Al Qaeda clearly has the ability to provide training … to provide expertise … and I think that is what has occurred here”

At the very same time, the Neo Conservative ideology spoused by Leo Strauss was spreading their ideas and their myth of America as a revolutionary force that can spread democracy and freedom around the world, but infact were a convenient disguise for a much more ruthless and anti-democratic exploitation of the world.

“We are not hostile to the United States. We are against the system, which makes other nations slaves of the United States, or forces them to mortgage their political and economic freedom. They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usamah and Taleban and then this incident happened. You see, the Bush administration approved a budget of 40bn dollars. Where will this huge amount go? It will be provided to the same agencies, which need huge funds and want to exert their importance.”

Many of us believe that business and corporate interests shape the world and that all ideas and political ideology are just froth on the surface that disguise the real, hidden forces underneath.

The neoconservatives and the Islamists believe the complete opposite – that ideas can fundamentally change the world. In the neoconservatives’ own words: “Ideas do have consequences.”

I don’t believe either of these positions. I think the reality is far more complex – that ideas do have widespread effects but not in the way those who developed them necessarily intended. They are taken up, used and distorted by many other forces which include business and corporate interests.

There is a synergy, a fit, between the neoconservatives’ particular individualistic version of democracy and the neo-liberal economic policies that suit American business interests, that is at the detriment to the rest of the Muslim world.

"Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil & believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks. And Allah hears & knows all things."
(The Qur'an, Al-Baqara, 2: 256)

“Political authority & religion are kin brothers, neither would stand but by its companion; because religion is the foundation of political power & its pillar, & political power is the guardian of religion; political power is not established with a foundation & religion cannot be implemented without authority.”
- Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi

"War is not merely a political act, but also a political instrument, a continuation of political relations, a carrying out of the same by other means" - Clausewitz

"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)."
(The Qur'an, Al Hujurat, 49: 13)